Madness or War, call it what you like
by Sally-Walking
Summary: War makes monsters of men they say.I for one believe it.Because I was there you know.During the War of the Ring.I don't know how I came to Middle Earth and frankly I don't want to find out.War isn't romantic its just death after death.I think I lost too.


**AN: Right so, here is my story, and i swear that it will be different from the rest of them. My character is not a Sue (she's over thirty five, which not many human sues are) I believe, but if you could give me feedback, that would be brilliant. Same with the story. I am looking for a beta reader, so if you are interested, please pm me. I love Tolkein's work, and if I start to mangle it in my story, I would appreciate you telling me, so that I can revise/delete it. Please don't dismiss it because you think it's been done before. It hasn't been done like this. Concrit? Yes! Flames? No! Happy reading :)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything Tolkein wrote about. His estate does. And the poem in the beginning wasn't one that I wrote (sadly) so i don't own it. I'm beginning to feel very poor. I don't seem to own much...**

_"Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night! __  
__Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light! __  
__Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath, __  
__Then her finger moved in the moonlight, __  
__Her musket shattered the moonlight, __  
__Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him—with her death.__  
__He turned; he spurred to the West; he did not know who stood __  
__Bowed, with her head o'er the musket, drenched with her own red blood! __  
__Not till the dawn he heard it; his face grew grey to hear __  
__How Bess, the landlord's daughter, __  
__The landlord's black-eyed daughter, __  
__Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there."_

A breath. A flipping of pages, rustling loudly in the quiet classroom. Elizabeth gave a small sigh and stood up, clapping her hands for attention.

"All right, Jeremy," she said, curtly "I suspect we've all got the point. You may sit down."

She watched as the scrawny boy scuttled back to his desk, then turned to address the class, many of whom were only just rousing themselves from a state of boredom-induced daze.

"Right, now who can tell me the main problem with the last few verses of that poem?"

There was an uncomfortable session of shuffling as the class exchanged panicked glances. What, we were supposed to be listening to that? Honest? After a few minutes of embarrassed silence, Elizabeth prepared to move in on the kill.

"No volunteers? What about you, Marie?"

The small, mousey haired girl in the front row of desks shot her friends a terrified look, but there would be no help from that quarter. Go on, tell Miss Peters anything you want, but don't get us involved.

Elizabeth raised an eyebrow, fixing Marie with a penetrating stare.

"Come now, Marie, don't be shy. We're all awaiting your answer with bated breath."

Marie went pale, her mouth opening and shutting soundlessly, as she tried to remember what this mysterious problem could be. The boy sitting behind her gave her back a poke with his pencil. Hurry up, idiot.

"I-I-I d-don't know, Miss," the poor girl squeaked, shrilly.

Elizabeth opened her mouth, ready to distribute a sharp rebuke and-

"Please, Miss. I know the answer."

Elizabeth winced, and tried to stifle a groan, knowing exactly who had spoken. There was no mistaking that soft, calm, and thoroughly irritating voice.

"Yes, Katherine?"

The dark haired girl in the back row, her hand still raised, turned her cool and undeniably intelligent stare on her teacher. She was by far the tallest student in the class, often mistaken for a thirteen year old, and Elizabeth hated her with an inexplicable passion.

"A musket is much too long for a girl to be able to reach the trigger. Unless she had _really _long arms," Katherine said, calmly.

Elizabeth felt herself flush and inwardly cursed the girl to the most fearsome pit of hell. But that _had _been the answer she'd been after.

"Yes, very...correct, Katherine," she managed, turning around and making a show of shuffling papers on her desk. _Why did that bloody girl get on her nerves so much?_

An answer like that was worth at least two gold stars on the large "Prize Chart" hanging on the classroom wall, but a little voice at the back of Elizabeth's mind was yelling that she'd be damned if she was going to reward Katherine for _anything. _But if she didn't, then Katherine would give her that long cool stare that Elizabeth had come to dread.

The class waited with bated breath. What'll Miss do? Hey, I bet you half my lunch money that she'll go for the stars. You're on, pal!

Elizabeth slowly began to reach for the drawer which held the sacred stars, counting under her breath.

_Five._

She could feel the girl's stare on the back of her neck.

_Four._

She could practically see the calm face, pale and delicate.

_Three._

And pretty too. Such a pretty child.

_Two._

But we don't think that way, do we, Elizabeth? Because it's WRONG!

_One._

_Riiiiinnngg-_

The long awaited bell had barely begun to shrill before it was drowned out completely by the babble and clatter of twenty or so children jumping form their seats and sprinting for the classroom door.

We're free! All bets off, mates, let's go have a kick-round!

Elizabeth counted each one as they tore out of the room, ready to disappear into the shoving, seething mass of students milling around in the hall.

Twenty one. Twenty one children, from a class of twenty-two. One student hadn't left the room then. Elizabeth rubbed her temples and thought longingly of the box of aspirins in the bottom of her bag.

No guessing who the last kid was...

"Katherine," said Elizabeth, trying to sound at least marginally patient as she turned to face the girl "You ought to be with your friends."

Yes, yes, _anywher_e but here.

"I am, Miss."

"What do you mean?" asked Elizabeth, frowning at the definitely isolated child.

Katherine lifted something off of her lap and laid it on the desk between them. It was a cloth bound book, very old and worn, its pages yellow and stained.

"They're all in here, Miss. Aragorn and Frodo and Eowyn and the lot of them. Even Gandalf, because he stopped being dead."

The words "Hurry along now!" teetered on the tip of Elizabeth's tongue, and then were replaced.

"What are you talking about, Katherine?" she asked, staring at her student in exasperated bewilderment.

Katherine met her gaze, her face impassive.

"The Balrog didn't get him, Miss," she said, speaking in the slow carefull tone of someone explaining to a very simple person how to use a doorknob "He came back."

Elizabeth felt irrationally angry, and embarrassed because of it.

"Katherine, I've told you before I will not have fantasies indulged in my classroom. You-you are to stay in at break tomorrow as a punishment!" A flash of inspiration came to her "And I shall confiscate your book."

It would have been better if the girl had cried, thought Elizabeth, tucking the book into her hand bag. Tears would have been easily dealt with, and she could have criticized Katherine for overreacting and being foolish. Instead, she had merely nodded and walked from the room, her head tilted slightly to one side as if she was thinking about something very hard.

And Elizabeth felt wretched.

She felt wretched while she was driving home, and she felt wretched while she was eating her dinner. The fact that she'd burnt it didn't help much either (Elizabeth was a truly awful cook). In the end she just scraped the charred and blackened mess into the garbage can, introduced her dirty plate to its numerous compatriots who were stacked in the sink, poured herself a large glass of wine, and retired to bed early.

It was then, lying there, gulping her wine rather faster then was necessary; that she remembered that Katherine's book was still in her bag.

Well, she might as well get it out and put it on her shelf or something. This she did, and then returned to her bedside to examine her choice of reading materials for the night.

The choice fell between a cheap romance paperback that she'd picked up at a sale the previous winter, or a history book about the Roman Empire. Or the fantasy, of course.

She walked back to her book shelf and picked it up, turning it over in her hands. The cover was emblazoned with a single picture done in gold thread.

A burning eye.

Elizabeth shivered, and slowly lay back down in bed, opening the book to the first page. Then she began to read.

The clock in the hall downstairs chimed ten. Then eleven. Then midnight.

Elizabeth carefully put the book down on her coverlet and stared out of her bedroom window at the darkened street.

Forty years old, forty years of common sense and rational thought and then you fail.

But that story...

She _wanted _to read more.

But the wine and the aspirin were doing their work, and her eyelids were getting heavier and heavier.

Barely enough strength left to turn a page...

**AN: Liked it? Hated it? Please tell me which and why. Thanks.**


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